I’ve got problems.

My bathtub leaks through the ceiling in my basement.

I have too many dogs and not enough pens.

I can’t find any ducks and I’d really like to find some ducks.

I need to raise $125,000 in the next three months or, the experts tell me, I won’t reach the goal I’ve set for our building project; one million dollars (spoken with your pinky finger in the corner of your mouth).

I’m fifty and I still think I’m 15 and so do lots of other people.

I have some grey hairs showing up on my head.

I forget easier than I remember.

My oldest daughter is pregnant with twins and they’re trying out names for me that “thing one” and “thing two” can pronounce.

Duck season is coming to a close and the semester is about to begin.

My worship leader is looking for a job. My other intern is looking for a job. Maybe I need to look for a job?

You probably don’t think those are very big problems. You’d be right but let me ask you, how much bigger are yours? Are they bigger just because they are yours? Do we really have problems or do we just get caught up in ourselves and ignore the real problems and issues that plague our world. Maybe we concentrate on our problems so that we won’t see the reality that surrounds us. Let me show you what I mean.

One billion people in the world do not have access to clean water, while the avaerage American uses four hundred to six hundred liters of water a day.

Every seven seconds, somewhere in the world a child under age five dies of hunger, while Americans throw away 14 percent of the food we purchase.

One point six billion people in the world have no electricity.

Nearly one billion people in the world cannot read or sign their name.

Nearly one hundred million children are denied basic education.

One in seven children worldwide (158 million) has to go to work every day just to survive.

Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half of the world does on all goods.

Do those stats make you feel guilty? That’s not good. Guilt won’t help anyone but honesty will. Let’s be honest, it’s time for us to stop hoarding and start sharing. One by one, a minute at a time, we need to start giving our stuff back to God and letting him use us to bless others. We have more than we need, more than we can use, more than we care to throw away. Honestly, who needs all the stuff we’ve got?

Let’s be aware. Awareness is good. Let’s find out how we can provide clean water, improve, education, evangelize, baptize, and teach effectively in the third world. Let’s actively seek to reach out to those who are truly in need. Let’s decide, once and for all, that God has blessed America and it’s time for America to bless her neighbors. By the way, America is us.

Let’s get educated. Let’s learn all we can about how to love and care for our neighbors. Let’s learn all we can about what Jesus would have us do in all the above instances. Let’s discover just what the root of all these problems are and do our best to dig them up. Let’s learn how to fight with every resource we have at our disposal.

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.(Romans 8.18) We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8.22)

I don’t have any problems but I’m going to do my best to help find some solutions to the problems of which I am aware. I want to be part of a solution. I’d like to be revealed as a “son of God”.